Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the invasion of his troops in the Kursk region of Russia it is part of the “victory plan” he will present to US President Joe Biden next month.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, President Zelensky said the success of the plan will depend on President Biden and that the US will give Ukraine “what is in the plan or not, [and] that we will be free to use this system, or not”.
“It may sound ambitious to some, but it’s an important program for us,” he added, saying he would also show the program to both US presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
A number of Ukrainian troops invaded Russia’s Kursk region in early August, and Russia has so far been unable to repel them.
Speaking at the same forum, Ukrainian military commander Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukraine now controls 1,294 square kilometers (500 miles) of Russian territory and 100 settlements – although these figures have not been confirmed by the BBC.
General Syrskyi said that Ukraine had no intention of holding on to this area and another reason for trying to distract the Russian army from its attack in eastern Ukraine. Russia wants it take the city of Pokrovskwhich is an important location and home to an important railway station.
President Zelensky also pointed out that Ukraine recently conducted the first successful test of a domestically produced ballistic missile. He congratulated his country’s defense industry, but declined to discuss other details of the missile.
Although Ukraine has already used some missiles against Russia that were provided by the US, it has been working to develop domestic production of military equipment to reduce its dependence on Western aid.
However, for now, Ukraine relies heavily on military supplies from abroad to fight Russia and stop its aggression. At the forum, President Zelensky said that Ukraine has used some the newly arrived F-16 fighter jets were sent to the West to intercept more missiles launched by Russia in recent days – but the country will need more jets.
Two days ago, Russia has hit Ukraine with a series of drone and missile attacks which left many people dead and caused power outages in different parts of the country.
Such an attack shows that Moscow has no intention of stopping the war, President Zelensky said: “If they want [peace talks]they don’t launch 230 air strikes.”
However, since the invasion of Kursk, Russia has signaled that it will not participate in any peace talks with Ukraine.
“The topic of negotiations at the moment has been largely lost,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
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